Posted 2 years ago on April 2, 2012, 9:55 a.m. EST by factsrfun
(6667)
from Phoenix, AZ
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

I guess right off the top people would say we don’t put you into a gas chamber for smoking pot, but those people mostly haven’t had their lives ruined by a drug convection. Trying to make your way in life is tough for everybody, without a trust fund, but to do so with a drug convection on your record is tough as hell.

Medically it is not at all a close case between beer and pot, pot wins big time, and we actually put people in jail for making the healthy choice in their recreational drug selection. Then we ask. Why are our healthcare costs so high?

103 Comments

Can we say this comparison is unnecessarily excessive? I mean, sometimes absurdity is useful in making a point, but me thinks this isn't one of those times. Sure, it's ridiculous that pot is illegal, but there's obviously a moral difference between sending a human off to be killed in a gas chamber (for which there is simply no excuse), and arresting someone (or issuing a ticket) for marijuana possession (which in most cases doesn't result in jail time, unless you have a really bad history, or you're on probation or parole, or you were caught with pounds of marijuana, and even the latter case doesn't necessarily land someone in jail, or at least not for a very long time).

But anyway, yeah, criminalizing pot is just silly. Yet another example of how fear combines with our knee jerk reaction to pass a law to solve every problem on earth, results in exponentially increasing stupidity (not to mention all the money we spend under the delusion that we can legislate away all the risks associated with human existence). Under the banner of safety and protecting people from their own occasional stupidity, our liberty is continuously eroded. Ben Franklin said it best:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin.

Remember there is a lot a variation to how people are treated depending on the state, have you tried to get a job with a drug charge on your record? Enforcing an immoral law is not excused by just saying "It's not that bad" some people really thought they were camps, and some people don't understand the life of poverty that otherwise fine people are sentience to.

I mean, I agree with the general grievance. My concern is with the impression this sort of comparison creates. What you're saying may be exactly correct, but most people aren't familiar with the finer points of history (and first impressions really are important). I'm not saying we should dumb anything down, I'm just saying this sort of comparison really isn't necessary to make a point that many (if not most) people probably agree with anyway. People know how harmless pot is, because most people tried it at some point in their lives. From there, it logically follows that ruining someones reputation for such benign behavior, is an offense to liberty (and it goes against American values).

This is a solid straightforward argument, and we don't need to travel into the philosophical never never land of extreme comparisons (and plus, comparisons with the Nazi's are so commonplace at this point, people tend to get turned off by it, and so it can make a good argument sound silly).

Good afternoon, I don't recall if we've met, I do a number of different sort of work here, building with the real people while using the trolls to provide me with the latest talking points so that I can destroy them, something I have been doing for thirty years, about the tenth or so time I heard some newsreader tell me about Trayvon's suspension for traces of pot, I decided OK if you want to talk about it, let's talk about it, so yes maybe I was a little mad. But I find you have to get things started if you want to talk about them ;).

no not at all, as far as "right" "wrong" I made a simular comment a while back but that guy used Hilter, so I get where your coming from too, damn people got all into this one though what the heck, still pissed Obama wouldn't take the question on marijuana in that Google thing he did, but hey I know politics ain't ? damn can't remember.

I wouldn't disagree, and I think it's time a little truth got thrown into the mix, of course that might mess up some people's recipes a bit, but hey they don't all seem to be working that well, take for instance the "tax cuts = balance budgets" we keep tryingg that one out and bread never rises.

Exactly right. And it still goes on as it always has because it's all about the money. Drug dealers don't want legalization, the police don't, the DEA doesn't, and the prison system is boooooming. They all love it.

Consider the worldwide body count over the past 40 years of prohibition, or 70+ years of marijuana prohibition (though convictions didn't really start happening until the 1960s).

If you put that number beside the 4 Million Jews killed... then consider how many people have had their lives ruined, and how many prisoners of war are out there today, and have been captured over that time.

Frankly, the comparison is not that far off; the justification for this war is no better, and the consequences are equally severe. If the body count of the war on drugs has not surpassed the atrocities of the Nazi's, then its just a matter of time if we continue down this road.

Its one of the worst tragedies in human history, and while it might be a slow creeping thing that nobody really notices or pays much attention to, those who perpetrate and profit of the war on drugs (which is really a war on people) are at least in my view no better than those criminals from WWII who were just following orders.

maybe you haven't bumped into the cops much out there, but looking over your ppost and comparing them to mine, I would say I talk a lot more about wealth inequaility than you do, but I'm not judging you just pointing that out

My post is not an attack on cops it is a call to their conscious, a call to come join us. I understand it is hard for you to understand how someone who truly believes there is too much money and power at the top thinks, seeing how you think so differently.

I would like to see all illegal drugs legalized, Marijuana to Heroin. Sold by clinics with verified dosages, it would end the crime associated with their sale. Our prison population would be reduced by half. Crime would be cut in half. Police, Judicial, correctional officers, lawyers, prison construction firms, would all be cut.

A tax on the sale of drugs would pay for medical and mental health services. Mental disorders probably underlie much of the drug abuse including alcohol. Get these people help, don't incarcerate them for years, breaking apart families.

50,000 people in Mexico dead because we export the violence to other countries is a crime against humanity. Didn't we lose about that many soldiers in Viet Nam? Why should Mexico suffer huge casualties because of our drug policies? Mexico has just a third the U.S. population, so 50,000 deaths is comparable to 150,000 in the U.S.

Anyone who supports continued prohibition of drugs may be well meaning, but completely oblivious to the great cost in dollars and lives that are paid to keep these drugs illegal, both in the U.S. and around the world..

I really want to agree with you, but I've seen crack at work, and I can't, crack is not safe at any speed, I do respect your opinion. Of course we wouldn't have crack if we didn't have the laws we do, but that's another tale. What your suggesting could work better than what we have now, I have seen addicts get their lives back together by restricting themselves to pot, some people need/want something and pot is the least harmful of the drugs that we know of that will get the job done, if I were religious I would say that's why God gave it to us, but we turned our backs on His gift for profit, read Marijuana Reconsidered (a decade before Jack Herrer) and we pay and our children pay for our sin, but since I'm not don't get to use that one. The thing with pot is that almost anyone for whom it has caused problems, they are legal or job related which can then lead to more problems, but it is never I got stoned and beat up my wife kind of problems, those are real problems all the problems with pot we create with our rules/laws the Nixon commission found that to be true in 1972 it still is, we won’t fix it because pot makes workers less willing to work hard for trinkets, that’s the one real neg. I have read so far, a guy complaining about how his worker turned into a couch potato, inheriting a lot of money can do that to you too, should we put people in jail for that too? Wait a minute I think i like that one.

From CNN
"Over the past five years, nearly 48,000 people have been killed in suspected drug-related violence in Mexico, the country's federal attorney general announced this month. In the first three quarters of 2011, almost 13,000 people died."

If this number is even close to being correct, how can anyone in there right mind continue the prohibition of drugs?

I do think we would be able to hammer something out if it were our jobs to do so, I do think if you take pot from the mob you gut their income and power, I might even be able to convinced on power coke, but for me crack is a hard line, maybe that just makes me a weak, but I have little use for "man made" drugs.

I understand your view, but it is based on emotion, not reason. Crack is here either way. It is better to repair the poverty, the depression, the abuse that causes it's use to flourish than to sweep it under the rug of a prison cell. Incarceration is no remedy.

In California, marijuana legalization has been voted down a number of times. I know a dozen or so 20 somethings who don't bother to register to vote. One get's his with a medical card, but still does not vote.

If the younger generation voted in large numbers, they could easily legalize marijuana. I personally don't encourage anyone to smoke it, but certainly don't wish to fine or incarcerate them.

Potheads are just as deprived of facts as any ordinary citizen. To be fair, we must observe this. However, often potheads seem to know they don't know. Because they do, "why should they care?" becomes dominant I think.

If they think they are informed, very often it is because they've listen to Alex Jones for a few hours, whereupon what you don't know gains lots of fear. In which case they are stoned to escape.

American media that refuses to share the truth, or to be a "free press", and instead serves up a plastic perspective on our human existence serving an empire dedicated to war with corporate collusion to supplant the people adirect awareness of their needs, is GUILTY of an immense violation of trust. Perhaps so large that it will go down as one of the largest betrayals of humanity ever.

If I were to fault the pot smokers, it would be that they are even more controlled by the same nonsense social fears as everyone else.

I am sorry, you may have gone to school in the red south like I did, thank goodness for the internet, it seems that in another country once there were these concentration camp guards and even though they did nothing illegal under the law where they were at the time, people have a problem with what they did, go figure.

Theoretically, when put that way, you are correct. There is no difference save the differences already noted. America is a fascist country. Even Dentists act the way Nazi's acted by swearing an oath & allegiance (so to speak) to fluoride. Most people know the history of fluoride & the dangers but dentists will lose their jobs if they speak up. They even have a hard time talking honestly about mercury fillings. If anything, America is NOT the land of the free. Free Speech has been dead & made obsolete decades ago. All is lost & all will be gained. The universe breathes in... The universe breathes out... World Solidarity!

I actually know a few people who use weed responsibly, including one who not only uses small amounts on a fairly irregular basis but also apparently makes sure to source her weed from small farmers in the US rather than buying imported stuff from organized crime syndicates. I honestly don't think you can get much more responsible than that. I also know a couple of people who smoke pretty much anything they can get their hands on and have developed an actual habit akin to alcoholism.

I personally don't smoke weed, and I don't really see any value or merit in getting stoned, but unless you start to get dependent or you start binging on it it's not exactly the end of the world either. I agree with you that being stoned off your ass on a regular basis is bad for you in a multitude of ways, but there is no way that it lands in the same class of harm as snorting coke or taking MDMA or abusing opiates.

At the end of the day, though, I'd have to say that the average harm done by society by the habit of a garden-variety pothead is several orders of magnitude less than the harm that a felony drug conviction will do to the pothead in question, and is actually rather less than the average harm done to society by the average alcoholic. I would thus argue that marijuana should be handled in a manner similar to alcohol (i.e. driving or operating heavy machinery while stoned is a no-no, stoned driving that results in a fatality is dealt with as vehicular homicide, and excessive or underage use of marijuana is legally prohibited) but that nobody should go to prison solely for smoking weed.

Hmmm, you mention other drugs as a kind of comparison to, or mirror of, kind of scenario. I know a creative film director who regular uses hammer (heroin) without affecting his career or parenting. I know two couples who regularly use cocaine to enhance both business and creative/sexual avenues.

It's all relative to the amount of personal input and self-awareness, in my book.

The yardstick for social "damage" is what impact your personal use has on both yourself, and those around you, and I hear what you are saying with the abuse of alcohol, as it is the easy one to quantify.

I just see lots of former close friends now couch potato-ing with their little bag of hydro, and a bong, and living in front of their TV, with their social life and creativity forgotten entities. Sad for me and for them.

I know, and I agree with you that people living on the couch smoking weed is sad and a waste of creativity and potential, but at that point it would seem that the problem isn't so much the weed as the couch potato-ing and the semi-depression that comes with it. Criminalizing weed as a means of lessening the occurrence of that behavior will work to a limited extent, but again I'd say it's neither a very sensitive nor a very specific means of fixing that problem (considering how many other substances, including nothing at all, can induce that behavior, and that one of my computer science professor's brightest students made a major mathematical breakthrough at the end of a four-day weed binge) and has all kinds of disproportionately nasty side effects.

I would add that the ideal solution would be to create a society and an environment in which people don't feel the need to get drunk or high (or if they do get high they do so reasonably intelligently, in the manner you described in your first paragraph above), but that is both self-evident enough and vague enough that it doesn't really add any value to the discussion at hand. However, I am rather curious about the possibility of creating such a society.

Drug use, including alcohol, caffiene, ephedrine, even car-sickness tabs, and cough medicine, is a personal choice issue. Anyone can drink themselves to death.

The issue with the pot-smoking is not so much criminality, as prohibition. It has never worked, and probably never will. Locking people up for abusing what is such a commonly available substance is rather pathetic.

Trouble is, those who could be bothered running for local office usually have an axe to grind, as well as a skeleton in the closet. It's the human condition, and that needs to be taken into account in the courts.

Such a shame the law process is as corruptible as the rest of our systems these days.

Basically, I agree with you here. You're never going to be able to actually ban something that's obnoxious but harmless when used by 90% of people and that can be grown in random people's backyards, so instead the focus should be on regulating access based on reasonable standards and promoting responsible and productive use rather than habit formation and binging.

I would assume that it cut down a fair amount on the black market trade (although I may be wrong); why risk all of the potential trouble that comes from dealing regularly with criminals when you can get the good you need (and probably at a lower price) in a completely aboveboard manner?

Yeah, though surprisingly, most smokers I know prefer to hand over the cash, than grow a couple of plants themselves.

There's still the stigma involved, I guess, though both my parents spotted tiny seedlings I had in my garden decades ago. It's not a new plant, and a brief google of the history will show why it went from a regular food additive, to a black-banned substance.

I prefer much more freedom and a much less powerful form of central government. Ok, so the US has a huge financial debt, it doesn't require payrolling 20% of the working population to make that happen, even if that 20% wasn't vulgarly overpaid, for life.

I want a central government that's strong enough to do what it has to do to do right by its citizenry, lean enough that it can do so with little or no overhead, and beholden enough to we the people that the people inside it don't get carried away. I'd say that's a fair thing to ask for; how about you?

Well, the minute you dismiss it as just another machine that little if anything positive can come out of then you guarantee that it won't be an answer. Before you get me wrong, I'm not saying that the system we have right now staffed with the people we have right now is the answer; I'm saying that it can be shaped into something resembling the answer given enough time and collective effort. Basically, you have two options; you can sit around and curse the system we have, or you can help to shape it into something that you and I can both take pride in. I've made my choice; when will you make yours?

DC is like any other institution; there were times in history when it served this country quite well indeed, and there were times when it became so corrupt that it was an embarrassment to the people it was responsible for. Typically, though, the latter would get almost unbearable before things got better, but then typically the reverse swing of the pendulum would give us strong, stable, clean government for a few decades before things went downhill again. I have reason to believe that what we're seeing now is the worst it's going to be for some time, and that when we do get things cleaned up we'll be able to make a number of major strides and that the next swing of the pendulum will be less severe than this one.

A5V being the calling of an Article V convention to resolve constitutional ambiguities once and for all? That actually makes sense; I'm not sure how viable it is given the current political climate but I'll grant you that under the right circumstances I could see an Article V convention helping to fix certain things.

I'm replying up here because your last post doesn't have a reply link. Notice that I never said that I didn't want to go up there and toss half the damn city in the bathtub (as far as I'm concerned that should have been done a long time ago). I simply believe that such a thing is possible, and a worthy goal at that. Now, if you don't mind I'd like to pose to you a question: if reforming the system is such a fool's errand, where exactly should we the people be directing our energies? I'm assuming the answer isn't "fuck it, nowhere," because if it is I think we'd both rather die happy, so what do you say I should be doing in order to get the maximum return on my effort?

Well I guess one rational objection to regular coke use would be the economic meltdown - as coke seems to be the very popular drug of choice on WallStreet. They certainly got wiggey with their business and we are still riding the sharp edge of a nightmare with all of the toxic product that is out there that has not destructed yet. How do you go about recalling trillions of dollars of bad product? Where and how do you start without finishing the economic collapse? Is this what our government and the world terrified about?

Myself? I think I would start by freezing all assets every where. Shutting down the market and locking the banks. Then go through a financial forensic team. Recall toxic product to it's initiator (s) divest it from the rest of the market. Pay out from solvent legal assets to stabilize the market, prosecute and fine the criminals ( going into and removing personal assets to pay back into the system deficit. Place the missing regulations back in action. Then restart the system. This should be done on the world market to clean-up the toxic mess. Those criminals (in the world market) that are not charged should not be allowed to continue in the market on WallStreet those criminals not charged on WallStreet should be banned from the world market.

Lets get back to solid vested instruments. Instruments backed by collateral not wishful dreams.

This could very well be why the government is hesitant about pushing reform and breaking up the too big to fail institutions.

Interesting slant on the wall street/cocaine issue. I think it was Robin Williams who said that a cocaine habit is a clear sign that you are making too much money.

Without going too deeply into the post-mortem side of the collapse, I can see where the tickler, or temptation side of the gamble would have piqued the interest of the regular coke abuser. I had a couple of snorts of coke decades ago, and the first thing a line of coke makes you want, is another line of coke.

A keen acumen for finances would clearly show a need for a regular and unfettered line of income, if what you really need is another line of coke.

Coke also gives you a rather uncanny sense of being so right about your decision-making ability/ies.

Your position above would be worth forwarding to your local representative, on the proviso that he/she is not into snorting lines of white powder, of course.

Actually, alcohol is worst than pot. And the fact that one is allowed and one is outlawed shows just how stupid this nation truly is. You never hear about a man getting stoned and beating his wife, killing people in vehicular homicide or getting sclerosis of the liver smoking a doobie.

No, pot is illegal because there is no profit to be made, plain and simple. I knew people who failed college because of their alcoholism. I never once failed a class, nor did worst that a B in any of my major courses while smoking marijuana. Alcohol is a scourge on this nation, and marijuana is just a prison population primer.

I tried my first joint 25 years ago. First beer about the same time. Beer has gotten lighter, and pot has gotten heavier since then.

I'm talking about personal choices here, my friend. I choose not to be stoned and anti-social and incapable of making sound judgements. I can handle mid-strength beers and a couple of glasses of red, just like anyone who excercises personal control can.

Dope grown hydroponically is now so strong, that I would say it is now on a par with meth-amphetamines (ice) and liquid opiates (heroin). How can you know the dose you will be taking, until you try it?

My beer an wine have clearly marked dosage levels on the bottle.

I understand that you might know people who have a hard time knowing when to stop drinking. There's no shortage of drunks around. They are, however, outnumbered by people who like to have a few drinks without the overindulgence.

No doubt there are people who partake of naturally grown dope, who are in the same boat as us casual drinkers. Hope that's you I'm talking about. ;-)

I don't smoke it myself, but your logic on alcohol also applies to pot. For every stereotypical lazy pot fiend around, there are probably 100 regular people who use it. You just don't notice the 99 others because everyone pretends they don't smoke it.

I've worked at upscale restaurants where the entire kitchen and 80% of the other staff smoked it, and I seriously doubt any of the customers noticed. Even the manager was blazing up at a staff party.

I agree with everything you wrote except that "Dope grown hydroponically is now so strong, that I would say it is now on a par with meth-amphetamines (ice) and liquid opiates (heroin)." In fact, thanks for that, I needed the chuckle. lololololol.

I guess you have been blessed, in that you have never met a tweeker, (meth head) nor a nodder, (heroin junky) both are sickly individuals who need help. I have never heard of a person willing to suck a dick for a hit of marijuana.

Even though marijuana has gotten stronger, it can never compete with the destructive and mind altering effects that those two drugs have on an individual. Again, thanks for the laugh.

You're mistaking all three drugs for crack cocaine. Never mentioned that one, myself. I've been the watcher for a "nodder", meaning there in case they stop breathing, and I've lost more school friends to meth than I did to car accidents from alcohol or just teen mad driving.

I wouldn't call that being "blessed". Hydro is currently way too strong a drug for kids from any background. I wouldn't give a phlying phukk if the streets were still flush with naturally grown pot, but the reality is, bush grown dope is harder to get than hydro.

I'm against it. You're for it. We don't need to argue the rest of it. Happy smoking, my friend.

I'm not against using pot at all. I'm just not in that party that claims that pot is a harmless sociable substance that is safe for teenage party tricks.

It is now in the upper usage category for mine, and I've been a "taster" for over three decades. There should be a clear delineation on the streets, just like there is in the courts, when it comes to potency, so the kids are aware of what they are into.

zachary, Gumby. You decide what you want. Personally speaking, If I could access regular quantities of the gold hashish that we were getting back in my early twenties, I would much prefer that to drinking beer. Though I would still have a few cold ales just to be sociable, if you get my drift.

Oh, and in answer to your first question, no, I have not tried the sanitised version, though I have grown my own a few times decades ago.

As a tradesman, I trained an offsider to the point where I could leave him on a job, and come back later, knowing he would have the job done to a certain standard.

I re-employed the guy nine months later, and it was like he'd never had any training whatsoever. All he wanted to do was sit on the couch and smoke hydro and play X-box. I would leave him there in the morning to go to work, and he'd still be in the same spot in the afternoon. Sad.

A young, vibrant surfer/skater/social person who had very attractive g/friends, in one year turned into a couch zombie.

I am not actually saying that one should do either one, just saying if you allow beer, you have no moral authority to jail people for pot. I could share stories about what alcohol has done to people I know, but it is a lot worst than couch lock.

Sure, I occasionally have a puff of "bush" or naturally grown dope, but I'm referring to the chemically forced dope that is the accepted standard on the streets these days. It's over the top, and I've seen the changes it makes in people I've known for a long time. Not good, my friend.

I dare any one to choose to be a passenger in a car with either
1 a guy smoking 2 pounds of pot
2 a guy after 6 shots of liquor

The only problem is the pot smoker is going to drive slow as hell and think everyone in a car is a cop. Then stop for something to drink to get rid of cotton mouth.

The driver of the car that took the shots will either die and kill you or people in another car. IF you live then you will be charged with manslaughter and the insurance will not pay.

Pot was made illegal to control the Mexican population in the 50's. It was determined that a large percent of the Mexicans coming across the border had pot for personal consumption. with pot illegal they could arrest then deport without being questioned. It had nothing to do with if it was harmful. That is what they said when asked why the new law making pot illegal.